Imagine if a white socialist candidate for Congress accused a Black opponent of “playing the ethnic game,” or spent hundreds of thousands on xenophobic mailers attacking an immigrant candidate. Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, and every centrist Democrat, pundit, and news anchor would go all out attacking the white socialist candidate, the Democratic Socialists of America, and anyone who’s ever been remotely associated with them for disgusting racism and bigotry.
This didn’t happen, but the opposite did. Over the past two years centrist Democrats have unleashed a highly funded barrage of racist attacks against left candidates in primaries, aided by massively funded SuperPACs. In 2024, AIPAC opened the floodgates with its then-record spending to unseat Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, which led to further record breaking spends like the AIPAC-led $63 million against Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.
All while the same establishment leaders and media figures currently saturating the media with ludicrous smears against the left, usually by misquoting Hasan Piker, have at best sat silent in tacit support.
While racist smears in elections are nothing new, what is new is how centrists are combining them with virtually unlimited SuperPAC funding from AIPAC world, traditional PACs, and newcomers like AI, Crypto, and Doordash to create a new media ecosystem of racism against the left. What follows is a timeline of this strategy’s emergence and evolution, what it reveals about the true state of the fight between left and center, and finally, how we can use this understanding to fight back.
2024: Bowman and Bush
In 2024, Rep Jamaal Bowman faced the most expensive Congressional primary in history. Even this sentence fails to convey how lopsided the spending was, as the vast majority came from one source: AIPAC. What this paid for was a series of ads that cast Bowman, a lifelong educator who founded and ran a Bronx public school, as a chaotic, untrustworthy liar who was only in it for himself, with taglines like, “Jamaal Bowman has his own agenda: hurting New York.”
If there was any doubt this “angry black man” caricature was rooted in racist stereotypes, Bowman’s white opponent, Westchester County Executive George Latimer, couldn’t help but make the subtext text, with some highlights including:
Telling reporters Bowman had “an obvious ethnic benefit,”
Accusing Bowman of “playing the ethnic game,”
Telling Bowman in a debate that “Your constituency is Dearborn,” an Arab majority city in Michigan.
Telling Bowman “You don’t mention people who are not Black or brown.”
At the same time, Cori Bush faced a similar onslaught of AIPAC funded attacks rooted in similar stereotypes, including a mailer that altered Bush’s face in overtly racist ways.
Faced with this outpouring of money and racism against two incumbent Black Democratic congressmembers, did Schumer, Jeffries, or the party establishment leap to their defense? Did they call out their opponents’ displays of racism? Did they say anything at all?
No. The Democratic party apparatus largely distanced itself from Bowman and Bush at the exact moment they faced these attacks, leaving nothing but a few perfunctory statements that came with no resources or real support. They said nothing about this highly funded infusion of racism into Democratic primaries. (And yes, Bowman and Bush were incumbents, but they were not on the side of the establishment here.)
Together, this flood of ads combined with open racism built the kind of media ecosystem of racist attacks that now saturate Democratic primaries. But it’s the Democratic establishment’s tacit approval in 2024 that gave every version to follow the greenlight.
2025: Andrew Cuomo
Once Latimer and AIPAC kicked the door open in New York, the flood of shit would inevitably pour into the NYC Democratic Mayoral Primary. It’s no secret that Andrew Cuomo ran one of the most disgusting racist campaigns in modern Democratic history. Nor is it a secret that he ran one of the most expensive ones, where an array of creeps from Michael Bloomberg to Doordash poured millions into SuperPACs amplified his racist message.
Racismmaxxing
Cuomo embraced a gutter racism that ultimately earned him a Trump/Musk endorsement, in a one man race to the bottom that saw him agreeing with an extremely racist right wing radio host that Mamdani would “applaud” “another 9/11.” He even became an early adopter of AI slop, including an ad that was not only racist to Zohran himself, but also managed to throw in an array of racist caricatures of other New Yorkers just for the love of the racism game, I guess?
This whole race is well trod enough that we don’t need to belabor the point. What’s important here is that as a potential Democratic mayor of the largest and bluest city in the country flooded airwaves with tens of millions of dollars of racist commercials, the establishment said and did nothing to repudiate or even acknowledge it.
The message was clear: in the highest profile race in the country, dropping 70 million dollars on racist ads is fine with the Democratic establishment, making openly racist comments is fine with the Democratic establishment. You know who kept going on the racist “Zohran would applaud another 9/11” guy’s radio show even into this year? The literal second most powerful person in the NYC government, City Council Speaker Julie Menin, a Democrat. Yes, ten million hours of “do you condemn Hasan,” but nothing about this guy.
Given that this happened during the rise of one of the most openly racist Presidential Administrations in US history, the whole thing would be enough to make you want to give up… were it not for one wrinkle: Zohran won.
2026: DSA vs USA
Diana DeGette vs Melat Kiros
Which brings us to this year, where as left challengers rose up across the country, “racism is fine if you use it against the left”-style attacks rained down upon them..
A particularly blatant example was in Denver, where 29-year incumbent Diana DeGette toed the line between repping her hometown and outright anti-immigrant xenophobia, and then ran across it shouting “she’s not from here!”
Let’s take a look at the DeGette campaign’s “redbox”, a legal loophole that lets campaigns signal to SuperPACs who to target with ads, and what to put in them.
Via archived page, as found by the Colorado Sun
“Just moved to Denver, has never held a full-time job here, and has no record of community service” is particularly sinister given that Kiros immigrated from Ethiopia to Denver when she was 11 months old, grew up there, and has lived the majority of her life there
But just as DeGette ordered, “not from here” became a core attack line, with SuperPACs blaring lines like “Melat Kiros JUST ISN’T DENVER.”
Not content to leave it to the dark money, the DeGette campaign even dropped six figures on its own, now infamous “Protect Denver Values” mailer.
How is this any different from what a MAGA candidate would say?
A lot of the response to the “not from here” attack centered on it being wrong factually. But it’s also wrong morally. Even if she had just moved to Denver, what the hell kind of person condones millions of dollars of ads plastering the face with headlines about how they’re not from here? Certainly, not one who is going to fight ICE.
Thankfully, in this race, something did change. The Democratic establishment did speak out on offensive comments, with a coalition ranging from long time elected officials to the entire spectrum of center right to center left news media, podcasters, and op ed columnists, who joined together to vigorously attack DeGette for her racist campai—oh wait no they actually just spent 10 million hours talking about Hasan Piker while saying absolutely nothing about the racism.
Maybe they should have talked about something else though, because Kiros won.
Adriano Espaillat vs Darializa Avila Chevalier
So clearly, the media is not equipped to handle covering stories like this. But they were especially not prepared to cover it in a race where Dominican incumbent Adriano Espaillat’s campaign was involved in an unhinged series of attacks declaring that his DSA challenger, the also-Dominican Darializa Avila Chevalier was…Haitian.
The Espaillat camp attempted to leverage a history of Dominican racism towards Haitians to mobilize Dominican voters against the Afro-Latina Avila Chevalier. From a literal former Dominican Republic cabinet official claiming she was a “secret Haitian” to a senior Espaillat advisor saying that she and Mamdani were part of a Great Replacement style plot to make Washington Heights “no longer a bastion of the Dominican community” and instead “a bastion of the Haitian, Muslim community allied to him.” At the exact time Republicans were fomenting rabid, anti-Haitian bigotry, the Espaillat camp aimed for the exact same flavor of racist fervor.
Though Espaillat himself did a perfunctory distancing, Democratic leadership said nothing, because dipping into this particularly deep racist well is fine with them as long as it’s for a noble cause like “getting Adriano Espaillat a sixth term in Congress.”
The racist attacks also helped kick off an endless media cycle about Avila-Chevalier’s old tweets, which the legacy media decided was more important than out-and-out JD Vance-style anti-Black racism.
Don’t worry though, the New York Times did finally deign to cover the racist attacks on election day, just in time to make no possible difference.
Did I say “racist attacks”? Sorry, I guess meant “Ethnicity Becoming Instrument of Division”
Fortunately, though, this time there was an actual change. While the usual centrists were trying to keep the incumbent at the center of this gross campaign in office, you know which Democratic leader who did call it out? DSA-endorsed New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
And she won.
Racists vs Adam Hamawy
Okay this one was just classic acceptable Islamophobia. One wonders if they were actively trying to outdo Cuomo here because they went right to “terrorist,” even though Hawamy is a literal 9/11 first responder.
This is again fine with the centrist Democrat leaders. Maybe in this case it’s because it’s the kind of thing current New Jersey Democratic Congressmembers go around saying in meetings with other Democratic Congressmembers. At least now Josh Gottheimer will have to say it to Hamawy’s face, because he won.
Haley Stevens vs Abdul El-Sayed
Abdul El-Sayed is not a DSA member or even a socialist, but no one with a pathological hatred of Bernie-and-AOC-endorsed Medicare for All supporters, or of Muslims, is going to make this distinction. So another array of creeps led by AIPAC made this the most expensive primary in history, with a ridiculously lopsided spending ratio closer to the Cuomo-level spending we saw in New York.
They threw a lot at the wall here, from attempted Hasan Piker moral panics to claiming El-Sayed, a literal Rhodes Scholar with an MD and two PhDs who taught epidemiology at Columbia and led the Detroit Health Department, was lying about being a doctor. When the money really got flowing at the end, ads leaned into the “Arab men are all misogynists” stereotype. It got so bad that in a positive development, one of Detroit’s two top newspapers actually called it out. These attacks were coupled with increasingly deranged versions of you-think-Palestinians-are-human-and-or-are-a-Muslim-therefore-you-are-anti-semitic attacks that culminated in Haley Stevens’ famed late night tweet:
El-Sayed had some particularly strategic responses here: from an ad with his extremely Midwest-coded grandparents, to openly calling out AIPAC spending in ways that used the very money in politics being spent against him to prove his point about money in politics. While the idea that outspending El-Sayed by so much fully “backfired” is probably a bit hyperbolic given how much ads affected voters when you track by region, his strategy did just enough to overcome it in a way other strategies wouldn’t have. So he won.
Francesca Hong vs A Bunch Of Creeps
The high profile race the establishment did win had a slightly different dynamic than the above, though not nearly as different as pundits have tried to spin it. Hong was outspent on media by a ridiculous ratio via SuperPACs. Some pundits have tried to claim it’s different in this case, and that ads largely funded by the Republican Governors Association, were actually efforts to boost her, believing she’d be easier to defeat in a general election.
I don’t claim to know what’s in the Republican Governors Association’s hearts (besides nothing), but just watch for yourself. Whatever the intent, the message that “Hong is too liberal for Wisconsin” has a clear effect: which is to make voters see that there will be millions of dollars of ads saying “Hong is too liberal” for Wisconsin. In a race that became about “electability,” this worked in tandem with the commentariat’s furor over old tweets, the DSA national platform, and other sundries (never mind that they’re all still more popular with voters than winner David Crowley’s pro-data center policy). The attacks gave any voter legitimately concerned about who could best weather similar attacks from the right pause.
While not so overtly racist like other examples, these SuperPAC spends still formed a part of an ecosystem in which big-name Democrat figures actively laundered the idea that Hong was unelectable, too far left, and too “crazy” into the press. Here’s David Axelrod accusing her of “faculty lounge exotica.”
Even in today’s endless media jockeying over what truly counts as “working class,” Hong’s history is pretty hard to argue: after going to public school and an in-state public college, she was a dishwasher and line cook, before working her way up to executive chef. So, what is it about looking at Francesca Hong that made David Axelrod go “faculty lounge exotica”? Is it perhaps the extremely obvious reason?
This is a less blatant but potentially more effective example of how anti-left media works: use a combination of saturation and validators to say “she’s an out of touch crazy academic stereotype who can’t get elected,” until the press press starts saying “people are saying she’s an out of touch crazy academic stereotype who can’t get elected,” thus raising doubts about her “electability.” This creates a feedback loop, buffeted by the constant noise of ads pushing the same idea. A week before the election, even a lot of left-leaning analysts started buying into it. And in a race decided by about half a percent, it beat her.
So, what does this extensive history of centrist racism tell us?
1. The Facts Are Clear: The Democratic Establishment Is Spending Millions of Dollars Spreading Racism. The Left Is Not.
Whatever is going on in the media, a simple look at major Democratic primaries shows that centrist Democrats are mostly fine with other centrist Democrats spending, benefitting from, and echoing tens of millions of dollars worth of racist media. Meanwhile, the left has done absolutely nothing comparable. And the proof is that if we had, the Democratic establishment and media would be talking about it 24/7 instead of running 34 75 230 stories an hour about Hasan.
2. Centrist Democrats Are More Likely To Be Too Racist Than Too Antiracist
Since Trump’s reelection we have seen the same tired argument used against the left: Democrats lost to Trump in 2024 because they were too far left, too focused on “DEI” and “identity issues” and “wokeness.” Therefore, Democrats must keep moving right, fight off any kind of left challenger, and do whatever it takes to suppress and delegitimize the ones they can’t defeat at the ballot box.
You might say that Democrats actually won the presidency at the height of their embrace/cooptation of anti-racism in 2020, and lost in 2024 on a platform that included “funding a genocide,” but let’s put that aside. When you look at where they actually spend money and allow money to be spent, the idea that the Democratic establishment is obsessed with antiracism to the point of losing election is hard to square with the fact that the party establishment has a demonstrable record of not just tolerating racism, but using record breaking amounts of money to spread racism in their own elections against other Democrats.
Chuck Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand run the DCCC, the body theoretically in charge of electing Democratic senators. Are we really supposed to believe that the same people who condoned Cuomo’s $72 million racist campaign and in one case even tried to personally outdo him live on air whiffed in 2024 because they were too obsessed with woke virtue signaling?
3: When Democratic Primaries Get Racist, The Left Is On The Antiracist side
The second Zohran Mamdani beat Andrew Cuomo in the primary, the sensible center took to the charts to explain why if you look at turnout by voter precinct, demographic breakdowns, and such, it was clear that the establishment represents real working class New Yorkers, while the Mamdani coalition was evil rich white gentrifiers (of course they each got 50% of the Black vote in the primary, but that doesn’t matter apparently).
As this year’s wave of DSA victories took away the center’s ability to write off 2025 as a Mamdani-only fluke, these efforts have intensified. Now, political establishment figures and allies have taken to a press delighted to boost their claims and insinuations, ignoring examples that shred such a narrative, and that left candidates are wildly preferred by every demographic once you look at people under 45. This reached its apotheosis when Queens Borough President Donovan Richards responded to DSA Assemblymember Phara Souffrant-Forrest, the working class daughter of Haitian immigrants who worked as a union nurse, with the vague yet incendiary statement: “White supremacy comes in all forms.” Like, uh, ending elder parole and copays on insulin?
This is not to say there are no complex, thorny questions here to work through. But you know what isn’t complicated or thorny? Left candidates are winning vast majorities of every demographic of people under 50, and plenty more on top of that, without dropping millions on racist ads or spreading racist rumors or rhetoric. You don’t need to contort a bunch of charts to explain how going around saying “Haitian” like a dirty word and running ads on how an immigrant born and raised in Denver “just isn’t Denver” is racist, or to understand that only one side of the centrist-left divide condones it.
How To Fight Back Against Centrist Racism
After the success of this strategy in 2024, many predicted it would be deployed by the center in every high profile primary against the left. This was correct, but not with the results expected. In most of these examples, the left candidate was able to win anyway.
While it’s difficult to isolate variables in something as complex as an election, especially a close one, we’ve seen enough to understand which elements are in our control, and which seem to be the most effective in overcoming these kinds of racist attacks:
Candidates Must Tackle It Head On
We’ve already touched on how El Sayed built this into his strategy, but it bears repeating. The proof here is not just in how much it became part of the race’s narrative, but that now in the general election, even his Republican opponent is trying to disassociate himself from AIPAC in the eyes of voters. (It’s just for show). The power here is in focusing on the money fueling the attacks, inoculating voters enough so that when they see an endless wave of attack ads, they go “wait, this is really a lot of money to be spending, and it’s the genocide guys right?” At the same time, pieces like his grandparents ad and turning his own name into proof of his outsider legitimacy, “I got a name that’s got 11 letters in it…People like me are not supposed to run,” helped him overcome the racist attacks.
Mamdani too dealt with Islamophobia using his characteristic deftness, laughing off the hyperbolic tone of attacks, but at key points in the race he created high profile moments turning the Islamophobia against him into a statement about what Muslim New Yorkers face as a whole, rooted in the same “I love NYC” messaging and universalist ideology of his campaign.
So as candidates consider what narrative to prioritize pushing through their limited media and press windows, it’s clear that incorporating a line like “the fact that big money is spending so much against me just proves that I really will stand up to big money” into your story, and calling out bigotry in a way that bolsters your own credibility are the best things you can do.
But Candidates Can’t Do It Alone
Still, even the best candidate’s own megaphone to decry attacks is limited. A story, especially this type, is generally not deemed coverage worthy until other voices the press considers legitimate make it one. Back in 2024, the press barely covered George Latimer’s racism until AOC called it out. As slow as coverage of the pro-Espaillat/anti-Haitian hatred was to come, it may not have happened at all without the mayor of NYC publicly weighing in. In Detroit, a mainstream newspaper actually debunking a highly funded SuperPac most likely helped El-Sayed. And in NYC, I experienced it firsthand as part of the DREAM campaign, where an array of political and cultural figures pushed overt attacks on Cuomo’s funders and racism into the mainstream in ways candidates weren’t able.
Just as Axelrod & Co used their credibility, connections, and press access to push “she’s crazy” into the press, the left is now a big enough force that our name figures have the power to push our criticisms in there too. With the added bonus of our criticisms actually being true.
So as the new set of DSA electeds prepare to serve in Congress, they will need to do this. This means potentially ruffling the feathers of their colleagues in some potentially incendiary ways. But as this money flood shows no signs of slowing down, they’re going to need to, because it’s going to be necessary to grow their numbers further. Don’t just play defense, go on offense with press cycles of our own demanding leadership condemns these racist attacks. Say, something like:
“At the exact time Americans are facing the most openly white supremacist White House in generations and are desperate for leaders to fight back, this disgusting tolerance of racism and the money behind it is exactly why so many people are sick of politics and feel abandoned by the Democratic party.”
Hell, demand they blacklist the vendors making this stuff the way they once blacklisted vendors who worked for Democratic primary challengers not that long ago! It’s at least as compelling as demanding someone cancel a rally with Hasan.
For now, newly elected left Congressmembers (and maybe some of the more high profile non-federal ones too) have the type of media megaphone the movement can’t otherwise access. They can use this to deliver piercing truths that break through the overwhelming media monotony of ad money. So it’s time to turn controversy over statements away from Hasan Piker and onto the people in power doing actual racist things.
And there’s little time to waste. If we play our cards right, we’ll soon be in the biggest fight involving mass SuperPAC-backed racism ever. Because if AOC runs for president, get ready for a flood of highly funded centrist racism like you’ve never seen, rolling all the blatant and more sophisticated efforts you’ve just read about into a disgusting blob we can’t even imagine. Congress? Senate? Combine the sheer amount of money in a presidential primary with the fear of a viable socialist Presidential candidate drawing new funders and players into the primary process, and it’s going to get very unpredictable, very fast. There’s going to be weeks of controversies over things we can’t even dream of. But if we strategically call out their racist messaging, and our electeds and other figures with media megaphones use them in solidarity, we can beat it. So let’s get ready for the loudest version yet.
Charlie Heller is the Co-Founder of Greenpill, a cooperatively owned socialist communications agency, whose work includes electing the first democratic socialist in the Hudson Valley, passing the first statewide Green New Deal law in US history, and creating the “SuperPAC-killer” DREAM for NYC.